Heritage’s Partner and Financial Planner, Marc Neumann, was interviewed by Authority Magazine’s Jason Hartman for the five essentials for smart investing.
Read below for snippets of Marc’s answers from his appearance:
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to ‘get to know you’ a bit more. Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
If you check my high school yearbook, you will see my goal was to be a stockbroker on Wall Street. I was lucky enough at age 25 to find a place to affiliate with that focused on financial planning. My initial focus was on owners of closely held businesses to help with estate planning, business succession planning and investment planning. I ended up in an office about 75 miles south of Wall Street and I am still affiliated with the same group all these years later.
Are you able to identify a “tipping point” in your career when you started to see success? Did you start doing anything different? Is there a takeaway or lesson that others can learn from that?
About three years into the business, I realized with the help of some good business coaches that I could afford to hire a client relationship manager to help process paperwork and provide amazing service to my clients. It was scary having my own payroll and benefit payments, but now share five full time employees with my business partner.
Ok. Thank you for all of that. Let’s now move to the core focus of our interview. As an “finance insider”, you know much more about the finance industry than most consumers. If your loved one wanted to hire a financial advisor (not you :-)), which 5 things would you advise them to find out about before committing? Can you give an example or story for each?
- I would look for experience. Start by asking successful people who they use as their financial advisors. Ask if they answer and return your phone calls.
- Explore the financial planner’s website. You certainly cannot get all of the information from the site, but in today’s age, it’s important to see they have a professional presence. This also allows you to see their team members.
- Meet with the planner for an exploratory meeting to see if you are comfortable. Planning for your estate and retirement can be stressful and you want to make sure you can comfortably share your personal goals and family issues with your advisor. Go with your gut! In the end, do you feel comfortable with that person?
- See if your advisor is independent when it comes to recommending products to fit your plan.
- Referrals, referrals, referrals. Does anyone have experience with the planner you are working with?
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I’m fortunate enough to be doing exactly what I’ve wanted to do since grade school. That is not always the case, so it is important to find something at least that you are good at and go all in. I’ve learned from my successful clients it’s not only important to help your clients, but also to mentor your employees, internship students, family and give back to your community. You may not be paid, but you will be rewarded.
To read the full interview with Marc, click here
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